Dunkirk, 1940
by Harriet Wilde
Summary: Marilyn P. you asked for it and here it is! Lightoller goes to Dunkirk to assist in the rescue of the British Expiditionary Force....pls review and even more, ENJOY!
1. Call From the Admiralty

It was a warm summer's evening as Charles Lightoller walked into his home in Cockfoster's. A long day and it would be nice to have a pink gin and settle in for a quiet evening with his wife, Sylvia. He smiled at the smell of flowers in the air. This was a vast improvement on the scent of eau de chickens which seemed to hang heavy in the air at times. Well, a man couldn't expect much else if he raised chickens, Lightoller now supposed.

As he closed the kitchen door behind him, he heard the sound of the telephone from the hall, and his wife's voice answering. His dear wife, to whom he had now been married thirty-six years. He smiled at her broad Australian accent which, while it had lessened over the years, was still recognisable to his ears. A capital lass, his Sylvia. He would forever thank the urge which had prompted him to pick her up and carry her round the ship. That was how they had met: Syl had been all of eighteen, just coming home from a husband-hunting trip on board the Suevic, which was where they'd met. She'd been limping about and he, ever a pushover for a lady in distress, had first asked if she'd hurt herself. She'd told him no, that she had been born with it. He'd fallen from her from the first sight, and before he'd known it, they'd married in December of that year, Syl a vision in a ruffled dress, a large flowered hat atop her curls. Now, here they were nearly four decades later, with four wonderful children and still deeply in love as the day he'd slipped that gold band on Syl's finger.

Now, Lightoller winced a bit and blinked back tears. Their youngest son, Brian, had been killed during an aerial battle the very first night on which war with the Gerries had been declared. Brian, the baby of the family, not even twenty-one yet, dying for his country right at the very start. Worst of all Syl and he had not yet been able to visit his grave because it was in German-held territory. It had been worse on Syl than on him, but then it was always worse on a child's mother, he now supposed. Yes, infinitely worse, as she carried the child for nine months and largely raised them. In Syl's case, most of the credit for raising fine children had to be given to her since he'd been away at sea so much of the time, especially in the case of Trevor and Roger, their two eldest children.

"Bertie," Syl's voice interrupted his reverie, "It's a chap from the Admiralty. Wants to talk to you about _Sundowner._"

"Sundowner?" Lightoller wondered aloud, "Right then, I'll speak with him."

"Hello? Lightoller here."

"As you may know, we are getting together a fleet of both naval and private pleasure craft to go over to Dunkirk and get everyone out before the Germans close off all possibility of rescue. I understand you have a yacht. Ah, _Sundowner."_

"Yes," Lightoller paused, wondering just what the chap was on about.

"We want to man her with a naval crew and take her over and back. There would be no danger to yourself."

"I'm sorry but I am not going to permit you to put a naval crew aboard _my _yacht." He glanced over to see Syl standing there, wiping her hands on her apron, smiling at his proprietary pride in his boat.

"But—" the man from the Admiralty stammered.

"Hear me now. No one is going to take that boat anywhere unless it is my son and myself! Now, if you want to let me do so, I will be willing to go along with this rescue effort. If not, then you will have to find yourselves another yacht to borrow!"

Lightoller felt his face go hot with anger. Let those—those _twits_ at the Admiralty get their hooks into his dear little lady, his beloved _Sundowner_? He wouldn't trust them to take her to the end of her slip, let alone over to Dunkirk and back at the height of battle! As he'd told an officer who'd ordered him into a lifeboat from the deck of the sinking _Titanic_ twenty-eight years earlier, "Not damned likely!"

"But—but, Commander—" oh, yes, he really had the chap flustered now!

"That is my final word on it. Either my son and I take her over and back, or there is no deal!"


	2. Next Morning At Breakfast

"You're really going to do this, aren't you, Bertie?" Sylvia poured tea and sat across the kitchen table from her husband the next morning.

"Oh yes." He looked at her over the tops of his reading glasses, "No one is taking _Sundowner _anyplace unless I'm aboard her. I know the Navy, lovey. If I just let them blithely sail her off Lord knows where, I'll never get her back. I have _no_ intentions of letting anything happen to her that doesn't happen to me!"

Sylvia shook her head. She knew better than to try to dissuade her husband; it would only make him more obstinate. Still, he was getting just a bit too old for this cloak-and-dagger stuff. A couple of years before, she'd gone with him on spy missions along the continental coast and the Gerries had very nearly caught them out at it. Only her acting like a ninny and Bertie acting as if he'd had a few too many had saved them from having had the Germans board _Sundowner_. If they had, they likely would have found the camera with which he'd taken numerous pictures. At his age, he really ought to know better!

"I have to do my bit, too." He smiled at her, "after all, Trevor is home safe. Now I have to try to make sure that at least some other lads make it home safe as well."

"Dad!" a deep voice rang out as the door to the yard slammed.

That would be their eldest, Roger. Just like his father, Sylvia now thought as she got up to serve him a bite of breakfast. Always up for a bit of excitement, no matter what that excitement might prove to be.

"Well, are you all ready?"

"Oh sure. Did you line up a third for this little jaunt?"

"Yes. A sea scout. Nice lad. Name's Jerry Ashcroft. You and he and I can manage."

Lightoller looked over towards his wife. He wasn't about to discuss things in detail since, with her fiery temper, his Australian-born wife was sure to lower the boom when she knew what Roger, Jerry and he would be doing to _Sundowner_ preparatory to taking on men once they made Dunkirk. Everything that could be taken off or torn out would be. And when he said "everything", he meant _everything_. Bunks, furniture, the benches in the wheelhouse—if it could be moved it would be. He was going to cram as many men aboard _Sundowner _as he could. He would need every bit of space in order to be able to do that. Even Sylvia's cooker would have to go. Oh dear, that was her pride and joy so it would be the first thing put back onto _Sundowner_ once they'd made whatever runs would be asked of her. Best that Sylvia, or Syl as he had nicknamed her, be left in the dark about that part of the operation. No sense in his borrowing trouble. Best that his wife never find out.

"So the Admiralty said yes?" Roger dug into his plate of kippers and eggs.

"Not exactly," his father admitted, "that's the reason for this."

"This" was his old Royal Navy commander's uniform from the Great War. He would go down there in all his somewhat burnished splendour, accompanied by the smell of moth crystals to make certain that he would be aboard _Sundowner_ when she sailed from Ramsgate. If she were destined to go down, he would go down with her. Not that she would, mind you. It was just that he knew her better than any man alive and her best chance of survival lay with him.

He smiled as he now remembered how excited he'd been when he'd found her down at Conyers Creek, an old rather beat-up surplus steam pinnace. This was a chance to make real his dream of finally being able to afford his own boat. Between boat builder Charlie Cooper and himself, they had taken an old beat-up pre-Great War naval pinnace, and had turned her into a thing of beauty, complete with a paraffin engine. A bit before now, he'd had it torn out and replaced with a 72-horsepower Gleniffer diesel engine, an arrangement that had raised her top speed by a knot or two. She was rigged for sail and occasionally he took her out under sail, but for this, the engine would do just fine. Less for the Gerries to aim for. After all, if her sails ended up full of holes, it wouldn't do them any good.

Oh, she had looked _so_ incredibly beautiful as she'd slid down the ways on that day nearly ten years earlier, her milk-white hull gleaming newly painted in the late June sunshine. Sylvia had not only had the honour of christening her, but had chosen her name as well:_Sundowner_, which in Australian meant "wanderer". That is what she'd nicknamed him because of all his voyages over the years, so, in a way, it had been named for him. Unfortunately, Syl had cut her finger on the champagne bottle, but trusty little _Sundowner _proven the old superstition that a ship that drew blood at her christening was unlucky wrong by bringing them through a storm that might well have sunk another boat.

After ten years, she was practically a part of him—no, she _was_ a part of him—standing at her wheel, he felt more connected to hear than any other ship he'd helped to sail. The thought of letting a naval crew take her out only to sink her was his idea of the ultimate nightmare. He wasn't about to let that happen. Not as fine and faithful as she'd proven to be in the decade since her launching. To his way of thinking, _Sundowner_ was the finest boat he could have ever hoped for and he was not—repeat, _not_—going to let her come to harm at the hands of strangers! If the Royal Navy didn't like it, they could take a long walk off a short pier! Either they played things his way or the deal was off!

As for his trip to the staging centre for the evacuation, he didn't expect much of a problem. As rushed and short-handed as the Royal Navy co-ordinators were, they'd be likely to say that he could take _Sundowner _over to Dunkirk and back, no questions asked. Oh yes, this would be a piece of cake. Even if they turned him down flat, come hell or high water, he would be aboard her. No one was going to keep him off _his_ boat and that was that!

Things must be sheer hell over there, the booming sound of the great guns of both sides clearly audible here, across the Channel in England. This was bad, but no matter—he would do his bit for King and Country. No Tommie should be stranded at Dunkirk. No reason to let them fall into enemy hands. No reason at all.


End file.
